The Beat the Microbead app is the fastest way to learn if your cosmetics and personal care products contain plastic ingredients. This app uses state-of-the-art text recognition technology. Just scan the ingredients of your products and check them for microplastics. Not only that, but you can also get to know microplastic-free brands certified by us.
How does it work?
It’s straightforward: you can scan products with four easy steps:
- Find the ingredients list on your product.
- Position the full list within your camera frame.
- Make sure the ingredients are clear to read.
- Take a picture to scan!
A traffic light rating system
- RED: Products that contain microplastics.
- ORANGE: Products that contain what we call “sceptical” microplastics. With this, we mean synthetic polymers for which there is not enough information available.
- GREEN: Products that do not contain microplastics.
Help us enrich our database!
Every time you add a product to our database, you help us build a case against microplastics. With every product information, we can create evidence and convince authorities about the extensive use of plastic ingredients. A bit of extra effort on your side makes you a part of the fight against microplastics in cosmetics and care products. So, go ahead, scan the barcode of your product and help us get some more information!
By adding the products to our database, you can also discover our certified microplastic-free brands. These brands have their entire range of products free of all known microplastic ingredients.
Why is it important?
Plastic in cosmetics is a global problem! Microplastics are hardly visible ingredients that pollute our planet & may pose health risks. These microplastics, hardly visible to the naked eye, flow straight from the bathroom drain into the sewer system. Microplastics are not biodegradable, and once they enter the (marine) environment, they are almost impossible to remove.
Sea animals absorb or eat microplastics; these particles are passed along the marine food chain. Since humans are ultimately at the top of this food chain, it is likely that we also ingest microplastics.
Using body washes or cosmetics that contain microplastics can put the ocean, ourselves, and our children at risk! With this app, you can get aware of this issue and make environmentally friendly choices.
Who is behind this app?
The collaborators behind this app include the following partners:
Plastic Soup Foundation: NGO based in Amsterdam, initiators of the worldwide campaign “Beat the Microbead”. Their mission: No plastic in our water or our bodies!
PINCH: a renowned mobile development agency from Amsterdam that is proud of their work for the Plastic Soup Foundation.
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User Rating
3 out of 5
1 ratings
in Ireland
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Reviews
Good idea, room for improvement
I like the idea of this - it’s handy to be able to scan ingredients and get a heads up on whether the product contains microbeads in it or not. However…it’s kind of tedious to go through the hassle of scanning, writing in product names and submitting, when that info isn’t very helpful for a future app user. It would be great and time saving to have a search function, so people can see what brands/products are already categorised, and so it wouldn’t feel so much like you are scanning and sending information into the ether when you come across an unlisted brand/product.
Great concept, terrible app
Unfortunately every time I tried to scan a product the application would come back with a ”unknown” product result.
amazing
amazing love what ur doing
Terrible
I am giving one star for creating the app. However it does absolutely nothing. It says there are products it doesn't recognise yet but actually it has recognised nothing and I have scanned a lot including some products already on their website. Giving this one more week before I delete it. Waste of space.
